


When You Were Young

by Lucky107



Series: The Seventh Born [1]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Coming of Age, F/M, First Crush, First Kiss, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-02 18:58:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14551251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky107/pseuds/Lucky107
Summary: A collection of childhood memories recounted through the wistful eyes of Deputy Roberta Caine.





	1. When You Were Young

**Author's Note:**

> This collection is intended to set the stage for a much larger and complex history between Roberta and John. That history is a combination of what is presented in The Book of Joseph and my own headcanon.
> 
> This interpretation won't be for everyone.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When they met in the summer of 1996, John Duncan was just like any other ten-year-old boy._

It was the summer of 1996 when the Duncan family moved to Holland Valley.  
  
Roberta remembers that summer vividly.  
  
The Duncans were the talk of the town: they were from a big city down Georgia-way and had come up to Hope County for the solace of country living. They bought the old lodge and adjacent hangar with the intention of converting the space into a lavish summer home.  
  
Everybody talked about it.  
  
Nobody could have suspected it then, the horrors that were to take place behind those closed French doors, but the full extent of the Duncans' sadism wouldn't come to light for another ten years—and by then the damage was done.  
  
But when they met in the summer of 1996, John Duncan was just like any other ten-year-old boy.  
  
Hope County was smack-dab in the middle of one of the worst heatwaves in Montana's history. Roberta's daddy had been breathing down her neck since the break of dawn about all of the chores to be done, but in such dreadful heat there was nothing more alluring than the local waterhole.  
  
And that was exactly where she had intended to be before the sun reached high noon and forced life in Hope County to a standstill.  
  
The dirt road that connected the Caine farm to Fall's End was hot beneath her bare feet and the withering, brittle leaves overhead provided no respite from the sun. She was half-way to town when she heard the telltale sounds of human life at her back: bicycle tires kicking up pebbles and debris.  
  
Roberta turned around with a brisk reply dancing on her tongue, anticipating the sight of her brother, Jeb.  
  
Instead she found herself face-to-face with a stranger no older than herself.  
  
"You're new in town," she observed. "You lost?"  
  
"Seeing the sights," the boy lied.  
  
"Nothin' to see out these parts 'cept daddy's cows and lots of manure," Roberta pointed out. "My family lives down this lane and our family's the only one out here. I reckon you did get lost, comin' outta Fall's End."  
  
The boy's face flushed a brilliant shade of red - past the sunburn that had previously coloured his pale complexion - and Roberta couldn't pull a straight face through it. She laughed a bellowing laughter. It would have been intimidating, if she didn't look so innocent and young.  
  
"I'm headin' to the local waterhole, if you want to tag along," she offered. "You'll definitely want to know where that is, if the summer keeps up like this."  
  
The boy nods and adds, "I'm John, by the way."  
  
"The Duncans' boy?" she deduced and all he could do was nod. "Name's Roberta Lee; my daddy named all of us after soldiers from the Civil War. Somethin' 'bout honoring a great-great-great-great granddaddy, but I don't like it. Roberta's a boy's name and—"  
  
The whole walk to the waterhole, John Duncan couldn't fit a word in edgewise.  
  
He didn't even try.  
  
Roberta was the opposite of every girl he had ever met at private school in Atlanta. She wasn't particularly well-spoken, but she was mature in the ways of the world and comfortable enough with herself to laugh out loud when she tripped while walking backwards and landed on her backside.  
  
Being with her imbued him with a confidence the likes of which he had never known: conversation with Roberta felt natural, even when he said nothing at all.  
  
John thought, in that childish way that all children do, that he might be in love with her.


	2. Old Time Religion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The bicycle is to a child what the automobile is to America: freedom._

Is there anything more liberating to a twelve-year-old than the feeling of riding a bicycle?

It presents a child with an opportunity to dip their feet into a lifetime of independence and responsibility before they inevitably make the plunge.

An escape.

The bicycle is to a child what the automobile is to America: _freedom_.

Racing down an old dirt road, clouding the thick summer air with dust and dirt, they still possess just enough innocence and imagination to believe - when they close their eyes - that they might just be flying. Their hearts soar with excitement at the mere possibility.

This is the blissful ignorance that exists between childhood and adulthood, where naivety only measures one’s capacity for further learning and dreams have not yet hardened into regrets.

John takes a left from the old dirt road to the creek where he and Roberta have been spending every sunny afternoon, a white plastic pail from her daddy’s barn drumming loudly against the bicycle frame.

Once they hit the grass, they abandon their bicycles for a short foot race to the riverbank.

The moment is captured in a tiny bubble all its own that isolates it from the rest of the world in a futile attempt to shield it from the corruption of time—the aged and more experienced whispers that will someday find them, even here.

_She’s a good influence on the boy._

_Anything’s better than being locked up with that mother of his._

There’s gossip on every corner of Fall’s End and rumors spread like wildfire in a small town.

Mr. Duncan is an absentee on account of his job in Atlanta, where he resides for months at a time—in the arms of a younger and far more beautiful woman, some say—while Mrs. Duncan toils on in what many politely call a ‘fragile’ state.

On a sunny afternoon such as this, though, the only thing that fills their crawfish pail is the rich laughter of two children at play.

It all starts with a decidedly dirty trick.

Roberta grabs the back of John’s T-shirt as they race towards the river, an effort to give herself a leg-up in a race she’s already lost. She steals the win and he accepts his defeat with grace, but he doesn’t forget it.

John waits until Roberta’s poised barefoot on the silty riverbank before he gives her a push that sends her toppling into the shallow water. She scrapes her bare knees on the rocky bottom, but winds up too involved in wrestling with his pasty legs to notice.

By the time the sun begins to fade they’re soaked to the bone without a single crawfish to show for it.

“Christ in a hand-basket,” Roberta curses as she wrings out her shirt.

She turns to poke fun at John for their childish behaviour, but instead catches him in the process of drying out his own shirt. His naked back is in plain sight from where she stands on the riverbank and the pale skin is littered with red lacerations, full-length.

It looks just like her daddy’s handiwork with the belt—

“Robbie?” John’s voice, the concern, draws her out of her thoughts.

“Your back—”

“Just took a fall’s all,” he assures with a humbling shyness, lying right through his deceptive smile.

He could have fooled anyone else.

“Bullshit,” Roberta hisses as she marches up the escarpment to inspect his back in detail. “That looks real sore, John. Your ma take the belt to you? It’s my pa’s favourite, but only when we been _real_ bad. The heck’d you do, goody two-shoes?”

“Something real dumb, I suppose.”

“Well, c'mon,” she insists. “We’s got some ointment at home that’ll do the trick. Takes the swellin’ right down.”

John slips his shirt back on over his head and watches as Roberta makes her way back up the hill in her training bra, damp T-shirt slung over her shoulder like a towel.

 _Alzheimer’s_. His father had spat in disgust when he said it. _Redneck quack! She’s only thirty-six, for Christ’s sake!_

That had been almost four years ago.

There’s no nice way to tell Roberta that his sin is _her_ \- when John returns home tonight, he will once again find himself speechless when his mother demands, “Where have you been?” It won’t even be dark yet. He will kneel in a tiny closet full of religious idols all night, missing dinner, and accept his punishment for his silence.

For every lash of the belt that bites into his pale skin, he will think of the warmth of Roberta’s calloused hands rubbing the Caine’s ripe-smelling ointment there instead.

And the next time he sees Roberta on that riverbank, John will look ten years older than he did the last.


	3. Stand By Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The autumn breeze in Holland Valley carries just enough of a chill to keep the late summer sun at bay without becoming frigid._

John makes the hike up the lane to the Caine family farmstead in haste.

It’s a beautiful day for it.

The autumn breeze in Holland Valley carries just enough of a chill to keep the late summer sun at bay without becoming frigid.

He no longer anticipates the thrill of running into Roberta along the way—not anymore. Ever since she hit puberty, her time has been a hot commodity. Boys line up to spend time with her, vying for a chance to be seen with her in public, and she trades that time in for favours.

Whether it’s the lure of an invitation to a senior tailgate party or a fake ID that will grant her service at the Spread Eagle, she’s got a full punch card these days.

It’s no secret that Roberta is maturing faster than John: she’s well on her way to becoming a woman and she’s only fourteen.

Even so, she makes time for him in her busy schedule without a price.

He’s not on the edge of the property for more than a minute before Roberta’s running down from her daddy’s farmhouse in tight jeans with ripped knees and a cotton shirt that she’s tied off to expose her middle. John distracts himself with the toadflax that grows along the fenceline.

“Ran into Charlemagne last night,” she starts, oblivious to John’s shy discomfort. “Solicited me for favours in the barroom bathroom, for God’s sake—like he don’t know I’m underage. Honestly.”

They make for Fall’s End in near silence.

Four short years ago, it was right here that they exchanged their first words.

On that day John had been so intimidated by Roberta that he thought he might cry. He’s sure glad he didn’t. The friendship they’ve built together has become his most valuable possession—the one thing the world can’t take from him. Proof of that is written across his back in thick laces of scar tissue.

Walking side-by-side, however, it becomes apparent just how little has changed between them since that day. Roberta still walks ten paces ahead of him, so far ahead that she might as well be just another memory.

But she’s always waiting there.

Waiting for _him_.

“So?” John asks, clearing his throat. “Did you do it?”

“What?” Roberta gives him a playful shove. “You know I don’t kiss and tell, Mr. Duncan.”

“It doesn’t sound like Boshaw was asking for a kiss.”

A hearty laugh escapes her as she turns her freckled face towards the afternoon sky. The clouds are sparse, but those that linger are soft against the crisp blue backdrop. The sound of laughter soon fades from the autumn air and silence blankets their journey once again.

That simple smile lingers on her lips, though, and John has to pinch himself when he thinks that it’s a smile just for him.

As if to break up the silence Roberta teases, “You almost sound _jealous_.”

“I’m worried—”

“Well, you’ve _always_ been a terrible liar.”

Roberta reaches for John’s hands then and forces him to stop with her to take in the autumn-like scenery. There’s still plenty of life in the surrounding foliage, but the first touches of autumn colour are visible to a diligent eye.

Even once John has stopped and stands beside her, however, Roberta holds onto his hand.

He feels so cold.

“This is where we first met, ain’t it?” She asks in a murmur almost lost to the wind. “I’ve always been glad I met you that day. Glad you didn’t ride right by without sparing me a passing glance.”

John doesn’t say a word, but he gives her hand a gentle squeeze.

Their eyes meet and in that silence more words are exchanged than exist within their young vocabulary. Everything has changed since that hot summer day four years ago and yet, standing here together, it feels as if nothing has changed at all.

Roberta stands up on the tips of her toes and, without warning, she kisses John square on the mouth.

It’s a chaste kiss, a kiss that doesn’t last for more than half a minute, but the memory will linger for a lifetime. John’s cheeks are flushed with colour and Roberta’s face splits into a grin.

“Don’t you change, John Duncan. Not one bit.”


	4. There's No Secondhand Alibis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The future that Roberta Caine wanted didn’t exist without John Duncan._

Roberta Caine was quick to establish her place in the social hierarchy of Hope County.

There wasn’t a soul who didn’t know her name by the time she was fifteen.

Whispers among the older population prophesied a young woman with a very bright future ahead of her—and in that regard they definitely weren’t wrong.

On the surface Roberta was a pillar of the community: she was a straight-A student with honors and an impressive track record of community service, always giving a little piece of herself back to the town that raised her. In doing so, however, she gave away too much of herself until there was nothing left.

Everybody said that she could shape her future any way she wanted.

But the future that Roberta Caine wanted didn’t exist without John Duncan.

 

Roberta Caine and John Duncan were two sides of the same superficial coin.

They learned to take a certain comfort in embracing what it was that the people of Holland Valley _wanted_ them to be - they were perfect, maybe a little bit too perfect, but that falsified projection of themselves was the future that Holland Valley _needed_.

It became a simple game of give and take: they were only freshmen when the first whispers gave life to their future as the homecoming king and queen.

The way John’s cheeks flushed pink the first time he heard the rumour was not an act.

There was no future for him in Holland Valley - or anywhere else, for that matter - if he was to face that future without his best friend.

John Duncan had shaped up to be a charismatic, but shy young man in spite of the torment he had endured behind closed doors, at the hands of the very people he should have been able to trust. She had taken their place, becoming both the mother and the father in equal parts gentle and strong.

They were only fifteen years old that summer, but beneath all of the façades was one unshakeable truth: Roberta Caine was his rock.

 

They run into each other by chance that morning at the Fall’s End General Store and the entire encounter plays out like a movie scene.

“John,” Roberta says, just loud enough to catch his attention across a shelf laden with potato chips. “Spent last night at Charlemagne’s place. You come by my pa’s barn this afternoon ‘cause I got something super swell to show you.”

If the underlying implication of the words 'spent last night at Charlemagne’s place’ cut into John’s fragile heart, he doesn’t show it.

Instead, he offers her a simple smile and says, “I’ll see you there.”

“Not if I see you first.”

 

Roberta awakens to the tickle of straw against her cheek.

She bolts upright to the sound of the barn door closing loudly down below and wonders how long she’s been asleep. Is the evidence written all over her face? Her cheeks grow warm at the thought and she hurries to button up her flannel shirt before she’s caught in a state, but John’s head pokes up over the ladder two buttons in.

His cheeks flush a brilliant shade of red at the sight of her, shirt unbuttoned to the belly and pulled wide open. “Y-you’re certainly eager.”

“You stop it with those dirty thoughts of yours, Mr. Duncan,” Roberta teases him like it’s the most natural thing in the world—and after five years, maybe it is. “Now, get over here and help me with these buttons.”

John smiles a simple smile.

 

Five years.

Countless wasted hours of growing up as close as siblings should have put them on the same wavelength that day.

But at fifteen years old they were still only children and no matter how much circumstantial experience had fooled them into thinking they had matured, they had not. They were hardened by the nature of those circumstances, but no wiser.

It had never been Roberta Caine’s intention to _hurt_ John Duncan.

On the contrary: there was no one in all of Hope County that she sought to impress more.

It was in her desire to be everything that she thought he wanted her to be that a dangerous flame was born and that flame spread like a grass fire in Henbane River, forging an equally dangerous double-edged sword from the ashes— _pride_.

And that pride had become her fatal flaw.


End file.
